WHAT EATS CHILDREN?

by admin on December 28, 2011

At The Witch's House

Welcome to What Eats?—The Food Web Website for Kids!

Like every other species on earth, we humans are all part of a food web. Fortunately for us, we occupy the very center of that food web, which means that, while we ourselves eat many kinds of vegetables, fruits, and animals, very few other living things view us as something good to eat.

So, what does eat kids? In the Grimms fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel, a wicked witch eats children—or at least, she tries to. In the end, the brother and sister outsmart the old hag and avoid being eaten.

Aside from wicked, cannibalistic witches—which, of course, don’t exist—the only other creatures that ever make a meal of people, either children or adults, are big sharks and other large apex predators. But, it is important to know that this is very rare—even the largest, strongest animals in the world have much more to fear from humans than we have to fear from them.

For more information on what eats what, and who eats whom in all the food webs of our amazing planet, just type the name of a living thing into one of the two red search boxes on this page—you’ll find one at the top of the page, and another one over to the right. Then press Enter or Return—and have fun reading!

An OMNIVORE is an animal that mixes vegetation and other animals into its diet.

FOOD WEBS!

Food Webs Are Maps Of What Eats What, And Who Eats Whom! Below, You'll Find Links To Several Food Webs.

ALL FOOD ENERGY STARTS WITH THE SUN

A food web—every food web—begins with sunlight. Plants turn that sunlight into usable food energy, and that energy is transfered to the herbivorous animals that eat those plants. When those plant eating animals are themselves eaten by predators, the energy is transfered higher up the food chain and becomes concentrated in the bodies of the top, or apex, predators.
The apex predators return energy to the food web after they die and their bodies are consumed by scavengers, fungi and microbes.